Those of us with gardens will soon experience what I describe as the rising of the sap.

If you’re a keen gardener you’ll know what I mean.

It’s a feeling, as you step out into the late winter sunshine, that your garden is about to come to life. It makes us want to do something in the fresh air. In a garden there’s always a lot to be done, but is gardening a man’s or woman’s job?

In 1840, Mrs Loudon, author of The Ladies’ Companion to the Flower Garden wrote: “It must be confessed that digging at first sight appears to be a very laborious employment, one particularly unfitted to the delicately formed hands of a woman.”

The entire book follows in the same vein with instructions on how women can on occasion be permitted to garden without men’s supervision provided they take heed of the many ominous warnings – that they should not work too vigorously, use only light tools, and not stand on damp ground because vapours would rise up from the earth and would be unhealthy “under women’s skirts”. Despite all those hideous warnings, women were undaunted, girded their loins and ventured forth into the garden. Jane Loudon’s books and articles had succeeded in popularising gardening for women.

One hundred years after this book, those delicately formed hands were getting stuck in, and digging for victory during the Second World War. And women became some of the most inspirational horticulturalists and gardeners of the 20th century: Gertrude Jekyll – still one of the most revered names in the gardening world and creator of over 400 gardens; Vita Sackville-West at Sissinghurst; Penelope Hobhouse; Beth Chatto; and, in Oxford, Beatrix Havergal, who set up her School of Horticulture for Ladies at Waterperry in the 1930s.

Perhaps the last bastion of male dominance in the modern garden is the shed. Traditionally the male preserve where they can retreat from “her indoors”, batten down the hatches and indulge in all sorts of disgusting, anti-social behaviour. Not for long. We have ladies with plans – that shed would make a beautiful garden room or home office space. As it turns out, men and women do seem to have a different approach to gardening.

According to a recent survey of 2,000 couples carried out by Roundup Weedkiller, half of female partners say they make the decisions about the garden due to their better taste in plants, compared to just over a third of male respondents. The poll found that women also tend to choose garden furniture and 40 per cent claim to have better knowledge of plants and shrubs, preferring to tend to the beds, pots and baskets. It seems the ladies know best!

On the other hand, the survey found that men remain responsible for taking rubbish to the tip, are more adept at cutting the grass, tending to the vegetable patch and looking after the decking/patios. Both sexes rated men as better at building sheds and painting fences. With only 20 per cent of gardening women responsible for digging and cutting hedges and 30 per cent for the lawn.

So, it would seem that Jane Loudon wasn’t so far from the truth after all. A lot of those delicate female hands prefer not to work too vigorously or use the heavy tools!